Doug Foltz

A Momentary Opening
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This tiny cut was a fresh one. It opened up during an all-night storm off Hird Island in Southeast Georgia a few years back. I discovered it on an early morning solo boat run around the island.

There’s always new stuff to see after a storm. Little landmarks move, stuff floats in… and new opportunities open up. Most of them don’t stay around long in a marsh environment, but you learn to use them while you can. It’s an opportunity to get farther in – or farther out – than you’ve been before… to see an old familiar place from a brand new angle… and to experience how you feel in that place. It’s a lesson I learned as a kid boating and exploring in the Keys and in the Everglades, and one I try to bring into the rest of my life now… off the water. Unexpected opportunities are great gifts. I try never to pass one up.

Summons
Keep me from going to sleep too soon
Or if I go to sleep too soon
Come wake me up. Come any hour
Of night. Come whistling up the road.
Stomp on the porch. Bang on the door.
Make me get out of bed and come
And let you in and light a light.
Tell me the northern lights are on
And make me look. Or tell me clouds
Are doing something to the moon
They never did before, and show me.
See that I see. Talk to me till
I'm half as wide awake as you
And start to dress wondering why
I ever went to bed at all.
Tell me the walking is superb.
Not only tell me but persuade me.
You know I'm not too hard persuaded.

Reading, writing and painting.
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I often find as much inspiration for painting in words as I do in the world around me. Sometimes mine, sometimes others. The 48x48 peice above was born of Robert Francis' poem Summons. I read it at a time when I was hoping someone would wake me too. It hit hard enough to start this painting. The poem is hand scrawled under the paint - first touch of brush to canvas.

Waiting Again
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These two have started a new series for me. Coastal birds are, without a doubt, the coolest birds in the world. Incredibly specialized, intense – and big. They seem to have a great work ethic - though I’m sure every landlocked robin or black-capped chickadee takes offense. The coastal world is just a little more harsh and requires a bit more from the folks that live there. They’re also the first messenger – the furthest billboard - I encounter when I’m water-bound. You see them before most anything else…. as if they’ve come to let you know you're on the right track. These guys however, are little bored, all out in they’re breeding plumage with just each other - just waiting – again.

Learning to look Both Ways
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The title really was the thought on this one. Looking both ways – forward and backward (left and right is the easy stuff!) – is pretty nice. Where you been, where you going… usually lots of good things in both directions. We tend to get focused on one or the other and forget to use them both together – connect the two.

On the water – particularly around the marshes – it can be really important… not just in terms of a deeper, more whole experience, but in simply getting home! Sometimes knowing where you’ve been is the only way to figure our where you want to be going.